The Lexington Herald-Leader is nonplussed: "What in the world did [Mitch McConnell] mean last week when he told reporters that repeal of the Affordable Care Act ... is 'unconnected' to the future of Kynect, Kentucky's health insurance exchange?"
The Herald-Leader's editorial board finds itself forced to explain to a United States Senator that Kynect works only because the ACA works; that the ACA's reforms mean "no longer allowing insurance companies to cancel policies when people get sick or deny them coverage because of pre-existing conditions;" that because of the ACA, "lifetime limits on benefit payments" are now a thing of the past; that "federal funding and tax credits ... are helping 300,000 previously uninsured Kentuckians gain access" to Kynect; and that the ACA, via Kynect, has expanded healthcare coverage to Kentucky's poorest.
To Mitch McConnell, though, there's "Obamacare," and then there is Kynect--which is a lot like saying there was the Marshall Plan, but, on the other hand, there was Western Europe's postwar recovery.
Herald-Leader editors pursued the enchanted mind of Mitch:
We asked the McConnell campaign for a clarification and were sent the usual talking points and a statement saying, "If Obamacare is repealed, Kentucky should decide for itself whether to keep Kynect or set up a different marketplace."
Notes the editorial board: "Kentucky tried to enact such reforms in the 1990s and found out we were too small a market to do it alone."
My money's on Grimes. That McConnell has twisted himself into utter incoherence isn't his problem--not in American politics. It's simply that he has, at long last, done it once too often.